In this debate I will be arguing that Feminism is NOT currently helping us reach equality in 1st world countries.

The first round is for accepting the debate.
The second round is for opening statements and new arguments
The third round will be rebuttals with new arguments still allowed
The fourth round is for final rebuttals and a closing statement/speech

Rules:
1. Stick to the resolution.
2. Be open minded.
3. See number one and two.
4. Good luck to whoever may accept this debate

Now I have one request for you, read everything I have to say and consider it. Speaking to you as person to person I want this debate to act like a bridge to reach common ground and have everyone leave the debate with a better understanding of how the world is. Thank you in advance.

Now let's begin.

Let me open by introducing you to a fairly recent poll. ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com......... ). A total of 20% of Americans support feminism, despite this an overwhelming majority of 82% of Americans are in favor of equality between the sexes. The only logical explanation for this is people see feminist actions and they don't believe that feminism is for equality.

Why do a vast majority of Americans believe in sex equality, but only a small majority of 20% of Americans support feminism? Well let me bring up a woman named Lauren Southern. Some time back she held up a sign saying "I don't need feminism because I believe in equality" ( https://www.youtube.com......... ) In this video she talks about how in the movement of feminism the only issues that are talked about are women's issues, on the other hand men's issues are outright ignored. She then talks about the many issues men face. This includes men actually being raped MORE than women in the U.S. if you take all rapes into account, including prison rape. ( http://www.dailymail.co.uk......... ) Next she talks about how men make up almost half of domestic abuse victims, but they do not receive any of the help that women have when they are victims. She also talks about how men make up 80% of suicide victims. ( http://www.avoiceformen.com......... ), 92% of workplace deaths ( http://amptoons.com......... ), 97% of combat deaths ( http://www.avoiceformen.com......... ) and 77% of homicide ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov......... ). She also talks about how men go through many of the same problems women do that feminists complain about. This includes objectification, rape, and mistreatment, yet feminism acts like only women go through these things. That is not equality.

Many of feminism's responses to this is that is that feminism is actually trying to help solve the issues men face. This is outright not true. When is the last time you've seen a protest that talks about very serious issues men face such as losing custody in 84% of divorces regardless of whether they can do a better job raising the child, despite their wives initiating the divorce 66% of the time. ( http://www.avoiceformen.com......... ). I have never seen nor heard of feminists protesting such an issue, therefore one can conclude that feminism does NOT help solve issues men face.

Other feminists will say that these issues stem from stereotypes about men and women. I'm not going to deny this, however I will say that feminism is not helping at all. Many of these problems stem from women being seen as victims while men are seen as the abusive perpetrators, such as the domestic abuse problem I previously talked about. This stereotype also causes other issues such as men being 165% more likely to be convicted than women, men receiving 63% longer sentences than women for the exact same crime and studies finding that gender court bias against men is 6 times that of bias against race ( http://www.law.umich.edu......... ).

Most of all what feminism says is that feminism is helping women's issues, and men having issues is a separate problem. 1. That is outright NOT equality, therefore this defense concedes that feminism is not a movement towards equality. 2. I would have no problem if it weren't for this one thing, that one thing is that feminism makes the problem worse. One major thing they do that hurts the movement towards equality is treat men like the abusive perpetrators and treat women as victims. This is blatantly shown when feminism talks about issues like domestic violence, rape and objectification. These are issues both men and women face, yet feminism treats men like the abusive perpetrators and they treat women as the victims. Sounds like a harmful stereotype to me. Feminists will try to shut down any who speak out against the movement or any who try to talk about men's issues. This is shown by women's studies professors telling their students to go protest against those who talk about men's issues. Here's a news report about feminists protesting people just talking and discussing male issues: https://www.youtube.com.........

Now I understand not all feminists are like this. Some feminists truly believe in equality between the sexes, and I truly hope you are one of those people, pro. If you are one of those people who believe in true equality and consider themselves feminist then I believe you do not belong in the movement. You deserve better, therefore I would like to introduce you to an alternative to being a feminist. Being an egalitarian. Egalitarian: of, relating to, or believing in the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities.

Now let me finish explaining why feminism is not a movement for equality by telling a story.The story of Earl Silverman. A video of one of his friends telling the story better than I ever could can be found here: https://www.youtube.com......... . But I doubt all of you are going to watch the whole video so let me tell the story myself.

It all started when Earl left an abusive relationship where his wife abused him. He started looked for domestic abuse shelters to help him. Everywhere he went he found out that the shelters only help female victims. He did not find a shelter. As a result he decided to start his own shelter for male victims, for there are no shelters for them where he lived, Canada. He then followed researchers and those researchers found study after study showed that men were victims of domestic abuse too and how the government viewed domestic violence was outright wrong. (Female victim, male perpetration) He then saw that all of these studies were actively being ignored. He did his own investigation as to why this was. What he found was any study about gendered issues has to be approved by the Minister of the Status of Women has full veto power to any studies that would be published to publicly funded sites. If she denies any study for any reason the report stops at her desk. Later on he started requesting funding from the government. Everywhere he went he was denied funding because wherever he went no funding was offered towards male victims, even though there is funding for female victims. Seems a little sexist doesn't it? He then applied for a hearing in front of a Human's Rights council for sex discrimination. He was denied, over and over. He appealed over and over, and ended up facing two lawyers. After four years the final statement was made that because there were not equal male and female victims it isn't sex discrimination. Which obviously is not true. He then tried to get on public shows to talk about the issues he faces. He eventually was accepted to debate a feminist in public television. The feminist did not show up. In fact feminism created this whole mess with their distorted models and censorship. Next he eventually was so far in dept he could not run his shelter anymore. He was forced to shut down and sell the house. The day after he moved out Earl Silverman was found hanging by the neck in his garage. Earl Silverman had committed suicide. His suicide note can be found here: http://www.familyofmen.com......... In this note he says the reason he killed himself is to create a need for funding for male victims. He hoped with his death feminists would realize men can be victims too, and he hoped that maybe they would finally care. Feminism is responsible for his death.

If feminism was for equality he would have got funding, male victims would be cared for. If feminism was for equality Earl SIlverman would be alive today. Feminism is not for equality.

Unfortunately the pro side forfeited the last round, hopefully he/she can return and continue this debate.

For now though let me bring up new points as to why feminism is not helping us reach equality in 1st world countries.

many feminists defend their movement when someone brings up the issues men face is by saying either 1. That feminism helps men's issues by destroying stereotypes. 2. That men's issues are completely separate from female issues. One analogy I heard was "that's like saying someone who cured breast cancer hates the effort to cure lung cancer".

Well the reason why both of these defenses are simply wrong is because feminism doesn't just help solve men's issues or do nothing about them. Instead it makes the problem worse and the movement as a whole tries to stop anything from being done about male issues. For example, consider this article/video: http://www.avoiceformen.com......... In this video there is a woman who talks about her efforts to bring awareness to men's issues is shut down and censored by Feminists. Clearly Feminism, as a whole, is not helping us solve men's issues. As I stated before it is making the problem worse.

Now a lot of people (probably feminists) will refute this and say "Well not all feminists are like that"or "They aren't true feminists". The thing is I am asking the question of whether the movement as a whole is helping society, not if all feminists are bad. Also the thing about saying they are not true feminists is that people like them represent the face of feminism. They are usually the ones who control the policy in place, they control the movements and they control what the movement actually changes. A perfect example of how feminist policy has hurt society and driven us further from equality can be found here: http://www.avoiceformen.com......... . This article by Karen Straughan talks about how once domestic violence (Let's us DV for short) started getting public attention there were two main approaches to solve the problem. One of them saw it as gender neutral.

This was lead by a woman named Erin Pizzey. She founded the first battered women's shelter. What she found while running her shelter was 60% of the women were as violent or even more violent than the men they were fleeing.

And then there's the second approach, the feminist one. This model says that men are always the violent ones and are beating their partners to oppress them and to make their partners fear them. This model is based on what is called "patriarchy theory". This model became entrenched and seen as the most common and correct model by law enforcement, social workers and judges. This model is adopted by many of the 1st world, western countries including the US, Canada and the UK. In other words this model is the status quo. Despite being seen as the model that fits almost every case of domestic violence, in reality, it makes up the smallest minority of cases.

The feminist model overtook the more benevolent model ran by Erin Pizzey, despite Pizzey's model being far more accurate and helpful. The feminist model has resulted in male victims of DV being seen as a joke and offered little to no help. Feminism did not help the issue. Feminism made the problem worse. Feminism is not helping 1st world countries reach gender equality, hence the resolution.

As Karen Straughan put it, "If society was feminists, and blacks were men, they would scream ever louder that blacks are the primary offenders and that other races almost never commit such crimes, that the crime itself stems from "toxic, hegemonic blackness", they would ignore the evidence, suppress the evidence, intimidate or shun researchers who produce the evidence, engage in threats of violence against researchers who publish the evidence, and continue their attempts to entrench their view of blackness being integral to said crime into legislation and policy."

To put what she said in other words: The way feminists view men and women in DV is dangerously similar to how racist whites view blacks in crime in a way that justifies systematic oppression.

The women Erin Pizzey I recently talked about was terrorized by Feminists for questioning their model and saying it was wrong. She was protested and threatened by Feminists. She had to have a police escort where ever she went because of Feminists. She was instructed to have her mail re-directed to the bomb unit to ensure her house would not be blown to smithereens. The result of this terror peaked when her family dog was shot. As a result she fled the country.

All of that just for saying women can be just as violent as men and that Feminists are wrong. Just for saying men can be victims too she was terrorized to the point of her fleeing the country.

Countless Feminists view men as monsters and women as the princesses that need to be rescued from their violent captors. They reject the evidence and suppress those who speak out against them.

As a result of Feminist policy men have been denied the rights as people, just because they are men.

So allow me to conclude, Feminism is not helping us reach gender equality in 1st world countries because feminism itself does not treat the genders equally. Feminism treats women as the superior while Feminism treats men as sub-human monsters. Does that sound like equality to you?

Unfortunately I was unable due to being busy to respond to this debate. Perhaps when I am more available we can debate this topic again, if you so wish to, we can keep in contact. I apologize for such an inconvenience.

I put the word currently to try to clarify that, but basically modern feminism. In the debate I will be talking about the feminist movement as a whole, and if as a whole it is helping us or hurting us.

What feminism are you describing? 1st wave? 2nd wave? 3rd wave? Neofeminism? It's such a broad topic you could easily lump in crazy feminists with the activists who are actually doing good work trying to stop things like the wage cap and sexual double-standards.